Banking: How long does it take phishers to empty a bank account?
A report in a Malaysian newspaper gives a startling insight into the efficiency of those operating phishing scams.
The report in The Star, a Malaysian national English language newspaper, comes from information passed to the newspaper by the MCA Public Services and Complaints Department. MCA (The Malaysian Chinese Association) is a political party and part of the coalition government. Its Public Services and Complaints Department offers, amongst other things, a form of mediation, often between individuals and businesses.It regularly publicises its cases, including those that are not resolved.
According to the report, a 35 year old woman received a phishing e-mail and clicked on the link. Thinking that she was visiting the bank's website, she completed information. She says that it was only two minutes later that she received an SMS with a Transaction Authority Number which she was supposed to key into the website. She did not key in the number and as she knew she had not made a transaction, she called the bank, explained to them what was happening and was told her account would be blocked and told to change her PIN. Then she went to an ATM and noticed that money was missing.
A similar scam is reported to have been successful against a 24 year old man from another part of the country. Within a few hours, some MYR1,000 (GBP1,000 approx) had been taken from his account. He had keyed in the Transaction Authorisation Number.
It was not disclosed whether the bank concerned was the same in both cases.
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